Bits Blog: Apple Settles Patent Suit With HTC

Apple and HTC have brought an end to their lawsuits against each other in the first settlement between Apple and a maker of Android smartphones.

In a statement issued Saturday night, the two companies said the settlement includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and sets up a 10-year license agreement that includes rights to current and future patents held by both parties. Apple and HTC, which is based in Taiwan, said the terms of the deal were confidential.

“We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,” Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, said in a statement. “We will continue to stay laser-focused on product innovation.”

“HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” Peter Chou, HTC’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Apple’s battle with HTC had a much lower profile than its legal fight with Samsung, a more significant rival in the smartphone market and the biggest maker of handsets based on Google’s Android operating system. In August, a jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages in its lawsuit with Samsung, though Samsung is challenging the ruling.

The HTC suit, however, was the first one Apple filed against an Android phone maker and a harbinger of future Apple legal challenges aimed at the software. Apple filed patent infringement suits against HTC in March 2010 in federal court in Delaware and before the International Trade Commission.

The suit was the start of what is widely viewed as a proxy war between Apple and Google, the creator of the Android operating system. The week Apple filed the suit against HTC, Steven P. Jobs — then Apple’s chief executive, who died late last year — erupted in fury over Android, in a scene depicted in Walter Isaacson’s biography of him.

“I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product,” Mr. Jobs said, according to the book.

Apple sued Samsung in 2011. Another Android maker, Motorola Mobility, sued Apple in late 2010, and Apple subsequently countersued. Google now owns Motorola.

Article source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/apple-settles-patent-suit-with-htc/?partner=rss&emc=rss